I'm sure this is going to spark more howls of outrage from my regular readers, but fuck it. Until we address the underlying causes of gun violence in America (i.e. the lack of mental health care and the ridiculously easy availability of firearmss), it's true.
From John Aravosis at AMERICAblog:
Americans do a great job of proclaiming our collective shock and outrage when some nut for the gazillionth time opens fire on a crowd of innocent bystanders at a movie theater, a college, a high school, a museum, or a post office, but at some point, if we aren't going to do anything about it, maybe it's time we stopped the charade of pretending we actually care.
How many times does someone have to drown in front of us, while we do nothing (and, instead, actually enable the death), before it's time to conclude that perhaps we are part of the problem?
From EJ Dionne at the Moderate Voice:
For all the dysfunction in our political system, a healthy pattern usually takes hold when a terrible tragedy seizes the nation's attention.
Anyone who dares to say that an event such as the massacre at a Colorado movie theater early Friday morning demands that we rethink our approach to the regulation of firearms is accused of "exploiting" the deaths of innocent people.
This is part of the gun lobby's rote response, and the rest of us allow it to work every time. Their goal is to block any conversation about how our nation's gun laws, the most permissive in the industrialized world, increase the likelihood of mass killings of this sort.
So let's ask ourselves: Aren't we all in danger of being complicit in throwing up our hands and allowing the gun lobby to write our gun laws? Awful things happen, we mourn them, and then we shrug. And that's why they keep happening.
The Boomtown Rats wrote "I don't like Mondays" in 1979, thirty-three years ago. Violence in America isn't a recent problem. It's been going on for a while now. And nothing serious is ever done about it because the gun lobby is ruthless, owns the Republican party, and preys on the Democrats usual fear of doing anything that isn't agreeable to 100% of the American people.
So the next time some nut goes on a shooting spree with weapons the gun lobby made it easier for him to get – and he will – let's stop pretending like we care, because as a nation we really don't.
Amen, John.
Less guns
This kind of relates, but maybe on a preventative level: If the whole "eye-for-an-eye" form of justice was resurrected with executions and beatings made public, would humans would be less likely to commit a crime?
As it stands now, I can go kill someone, plead guilty to it, get a nice cushy prison gig for 7-10 years, get released early on good behavior, and then go do something else. And everyone knows this. What is there to fear? Change that to I kill someone, I die. Swiftly. No waiting years for the possibility of not getting killed for killing. Don't you think humans might be less likely to be… stupid?
And as for most every other crime: public beatings. I really think there's something to be said for corporal punishment that is deserved.
While as a whole we try to be a more "civilized" society, we're not instilling the fear of (any) law in our citizenry. And I think that is a big part of the issue.
"Violence in America isn't a recent problem." Agreed.
"And nothing serious is ever done about it because the gun lobby is ruthless" Except not all violence is caused by guns, yet this just conflated one issue with another.
The overriding theme of this message appears to be "We haven't made it illegal so obviously we don't care". Correct me if I'm wrong about that part, at least.
Except that logic doesn't work. Airplanes are flown into buildings, so why haven't we made airplanes illegal? Large vans are used to transport bombs next to buildings, so why haven't large vans been made illegal? Cars are implicated in deaths all the time, so why haven't we made cars illegal?
You know what is illegal? Killing someone; there are already laws against that. Except that hasn't stopped people from being killed, though, so making more stuff illegal isn't going to stop them either.
Whether the weapon is a sword, a gun, poison, a bomb, etc; it's still illegal and anyone who kills someone by any method is still held accountable under the penalty of murder. And yet it still happens regardless of the weapon.
But back to the guns issue, if citizens shouldn't have automatic rifles then why should our military be allowed to have them? If pistols are good enough for citizens, they should be good enough for the military. Except if the military has automated guns then there's a power imbalance and a huge chain of command that could corrupt at a number of levels: the military itself, their generals, the military committee, congress, or even the president. A corruption at any of those levels could result in a coup. If all guns should be banned then obviously we need to put the genie back in the bottle and not even the military should be allowed to have them.
Except therein lies the problem: You can't un-invent something. Guns are here to stay, just likes cars, large vans, and airplanes. We better figure out a way of co-existing with them, or we may as well just annihilate ourselves in the process.
"…or we may as well just annihilate ourselves in the process."
I fear it's coming. Also the probable reason we haven't heard from anyone else "out there," as it happens to all civilizations.
Agreed.